1 inch thick with Amada FO3014 4000 watt

[R4725]

I have spent many hours trying to tune this machine to cut one inch thick mild steel with no luck. It might very well be operator though as I am quite new to operating a laser. I have had the machine cutting 3/4 inch very well though. I must have cut about 200 one inch diameter holes, well tried to and got two in a row that I could tap out with a punch that would qualify as usable parts but they are by no means a good quality hole. Then with out changing any setting (just trying to find some consistancy) then it would mess up a whole bunch so I would make some adjustments and finally got one more hole I could tap out but then no others. I got the peirce working well and the aproch seems to be good also just alot of dross and not cutting through. Do you guys think that I should be able to get this machine to cut one inch should I try again? If so I will get some pictures posted up here so you can see my cut conditions and what I was able to get as far as quality of cut. Thank alot for the help.

 

[LASERNINJA]

It can be done. Its not easy. All your consumables have to be top notch. Your plate you are cutting has to be very high quality. I have been told low silica content is the key.

 

[gotpho]

I'm curious to see what your cut conditions are. Generally cutting such a thick mild steel will require not only high power but lower speed. Have you tried going to wider nozzle and increasing the pressure just a little? The increase pressure may help get rid of the dross by pushing the material out.

 

[R4725]

Ok I might attempt again cutting one inch again then. I am using a 4.0 double nozzle WACs off. I think this was possibly my last settings when I gave up E3 was boing used to cut the 1 inch diameter holes: 10 inch per minute 4000 watts 1000 freq 85 duty gas 0.04 E4 was 15 feed rate 100 duty all the rest were the same.

 

[KaptainK]

As Laserninja says, it can be done. Good material, good consumables, good optic condition and alignment inner and outer oscillator, Good condition of cooling circuit, mint focus lens needed. Feed on E4 22-24 IPM, 4000watts,Freq. 850-950, Duty 90-95, O2 .04-.05, Focus .160-.220 - E2 for 1'' holes 21-23 IPM all same but less duty and freq. maybe 800-850 freq and 85-90 duty. Very fussy it is and even between 2 different material HT's you may need to adjust. Setting of edge conditioning for pierce to leadin and leadin to profile settings also need to be tweaked sometimes. Remember poor cut might mean that you are going too slow not too fast but the max. speed potential of this machine and 1'' with 7.5'' lens is never more that 24-26 IPM. The use of wacs is recommended to keep all cool.

The cut will never be like 3/4'', pronounced striation in bottom 1/4 of cut but acceptable for many applications. The machine is technically only rated for 3/4'' and generally will do it very well day in and day out.

Good luck!

 

[KaptainK]

Use a 3.8 or 4.0 DBL wacs nozzle only BTW.

 

[R4725]

Thanks alot, I will give it a try when I have a chance. I think I will hire out my 1 inch thick stuff for the bigger jobs and hopefully I can get it cutting well enough to do my prototype parts in house. Thanks again.

 

[evans1089]

We had an issue cutting similar material. When using the WACS, the water pressure was set to high on our machine which made the cut terrible. We had Amada out who looked at everything for us, they adjusted the wacs flow rate (decreased it) and re-tested. It was cutting better but then we tweaked the conditions. Turning down the duty a little, couple at a time, until we got a constant good quality cut.